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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22706740">you don’t have to call me yours, my love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenfire/pseuds/serenfire'>serenfire</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Being a Witcher Complicates Things Somewhat, Cursed By a Mage, Cursed to Tell the Truth Until Kissing Your Soulmate, Elements of the Different Witcher Medias, Geraskier Week, Humor in the Face of Angst, M/M, Non-Traditional Soulmate Dynamics, Set Ambiguously in the Show Universe Maybe, Soulmates, That Mage? Albert Einstein</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:35:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,521</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22706740</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenfire/pseuds/serenfire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m sorry,” Jaskier says. “This is absolutely my fault, and I shouldn’t have accompanied you in the first place. But you don’t have to worry about me! I can deal with this myself.” </p><p>“Jaskier, you’ve been cursed to tell the truth until you fucking smooch your soulmate!” Geralt shouts. “And you <i>don’t have a soulmate!</i> So no, you can’t deal with this yourself.” </p><p>Jaskier winces. “It’s actually a little worse than that,” he admits. “I know for a fact that I will never be anyone’s soulmate.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2461</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Just.... So cute..., That's My Soul Mate</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>you don’t have to call me yours, my love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>DAY 1 - SOULMATES</p><p>set ambiguously between the show and witcher 3 universes. if you haven't played w3, just know that there are more cool sorceresses on the continent and they cameo in this because jaskier's popular.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">It turns out to be a mistake to bring Jaskier along. It always turns out to be a mistake to bring Jaskier along. Geralt keeps doing it, regardless.</p><p class="p1">In his defense, this time it’s because Jaskier was already in town.</p><p class="p1">A city guard leans into Geralt’s personal space, eyes wide, full pint of beer sloshing in his shaking hands. He can’t be more than twenty-five. “There’s a mage that’s been terrorizing us,” he says in a hush.</p><p class="p1">Geralt grunts. His legs are on their way to being sore from sitting on this cramped bench. Corner pubs aren’t known for their spacious floor plans.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier shoots him a Look that says, <em>Be nice.</em></p><p class="p1">Geralt turns back to the quaking not-a-child guard. “What has the mage been doing?” he inquires further, smiling with thin lips. Next to him, Jaskier scratches down the particulars of the case in his notes.</p><p class="p1">“Stealing rations. Freeing the blasting Scoia’tael sympathizers we managed to bag last week. But what the mage did today. Well.” The man takes a shaky gulp of beer.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier shifts in his seat next to Geralt, touching their thighs together. He scribbles something down in his notes and circles it, nudging Geralt’s thigh to guide him.</p><p class="p1">Geralt looks down at the notes.</p><p class="p1">In his usual flowing script, Jaskier has scrawled: <em>good for the fuckin mage! respect!!</em></p><p class="p1">Geralt coughs to cover up a wide smile.</p><p class="p1">The guard continues, waving his free hand around to possibly conjure up the absolute terror of this mage’s attack. He leans in close. “We almost had them. We’d tracked them down to a neighborhood, we were casing the joint, and the mage appeared on the street. And they <em>cursed</em> us.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt huffs again. If the guard wants him to cure an actual curse, he’ll need to be paid a couple hundred more crowns than promised. “What was the curse?”</p><p class="p1">“They cursed us…to never find a soulmate. Ever.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt purses his lips. He’s about to burst into laughter again.</p><p class="p1">The guard waves his hands a couple more times, as if for dramatic effect. “Did you hear me! They cursed us to never meet our soulmate. You know, to never <em>see in color</em>. To never feel the—the undying love of another human. Forever.”</p><p class="p1">“Oh no,” Geralt deadpans. “You’ve been cursed to never find a soulmate. And, of course, you’ll find only sympathy here, hiring someone who <em>absolutely</em> has the ability to find a soulmate.”</p><p class="p1">He looks over at Jaskier, wanting to smile brightly at his friend, to further point out the obvious hilarity in hiring a witcher to preserve someone else’s chance at finding a soulmate.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier, however, doesn’t catch his eye. He’s nodding along with the guard, a frown on his face.</p><p class="p1">Could Jaskier, infamous ally of mages and the Scoia’tael, feel sorry for this guard because he won’t be able to find a soulmate?</p><p class="p1">Jaskier shakily huffs out a breath. “Geralt,” he says, and his voice is unsteady now, “I think you should take the case.”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier’s wearing a lovely outfit today, laced up and baby blue.</p><p class="p1">Geralt knows it’s blue, of course.</p><p class="p1">As a child, after years of long nights spent shaking through aftereffects of witcher mutations, gradually the colors snuck up on him. Every glance, every accurate read-out differentiating visible light, reminds him that he is no longer human, and he has been denied this last tether to humanity.</p><p class="p1">But Jaskier can’t see the blue of his own outfit, can he.</p><p class="p1">Because he doesn’t have a soulmate.</p><p class="p1">Because he has the <em>possibility </em>of finding a soulmate, sharing a glance with a lucky human across a crowded bar and experiencing the world flaring to color with immeasurable vividness.</p><p class="p1">That’s how color should be discovered—with a bountiful joy of discovering a person you were meant to find amazing. Not like Geralt in the moonlight of Kaer Morhen, realizing how blood-coated he really was because it was suddenly <em>red</em>.</p><p class="p1">Geralt shakes himself out of it. “We’ll find your mage,” he promises the Novigrad guard. “We’ll see about the curse.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">And so, predictably, Jaskier comes with him.</p><p class="p1">“The mage seems harmless,” Jaskier tries to convince him, stuffing a pastry into his mouth at the same moment. “If we meet them, I’ll just talk about how we met Toruviel,‘cause she’s super famous now, and they’ll ask for my autograph, and it will be fine.”</p><p class="p1">“If we meet the mage, and they curse us, I don’t want you missing your chance to find your soulmate because of me.”</p><p class="p1">“Geralt,” Jaskier says, finishing chewing on the pastry, “you…don’t have to worry about me.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt turns back to Jaskier, cocking an eyebrow. “Oh, have you already found a soulmate?” Jaskier hasn’t mentioned it before, so Geralt had assumed not.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier tells him<em> everything</em>, though; it’s not like Jaskier is going to go through such a life-changing discovery as finding a soulmate and not tell him.</p><p class="p1">Right?</p><p class="p1">Jaskier huffs, humorless, and shakes his head. “Come on,” Jaskier tries, one last time, “we’re not going to run into anyone anyways. We just have to break into a Novigrad flat. I did that all the time in college.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">While Jaskier does pick the lock of the mage’s flat with surprising ease, hissing a tale about hiding from a spurned lover at the age of twenty, he fails to notice the trap lying in wait for them. As he pushes open the front door, a glass falls off the shelf and shatters on the ground in front of him.</p><p class="p1">Geralt’s standing behind him, steel sword brandished in the hallway, watching for any apparitions to appear, and it takes him a second to understand what’s happened.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier shrieks, vaulting back into Geralt. “Oh, gross, there’s goop all over me!”</p><p class="p1">“Let me see,” Geralt says impatiently, and Jaskier stands very still as Geralt slowly walks around him, making sure not to step in the puddles of goop on the floor as well.</p><p class="p1">“Hmm.”</p><p class="p1">“<em>Hmm</em>?” Jaskier says, voice an octave too high. “Is that a good or bad hmm? Am I going to die? Geralt, am I going to die? Geralt, I think I’m going to die. Geralt, I’m really scared.”</p><p class="p1">“Calm down,” Geralt says. “You’re not going to die.” Probably. “Stay behind me.”</p><p class="p1">He walks further into the flat, making sure not to set off the tripwires connected to high shelves stocked full of bubbling glasses, looking more like an alchemist’s wet dream than a mage’s squat.</p><p class="p1">There’s not much in the flat, but there is an opened letter on the desk that looks like correspondence between the mage and a member of the Scoia’tael. Geralt gets three lines into the letter when it ceases talking about troop movements in code and gets <em>very </em>steamy, and he puts the letter down.</p><p class="p1">“Geralt, I think it’s burning.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt looks back at Jaskier. The green goop is discoloring his baby blue doublet, which is unfortunate because it interrupts the aesthetic of the outfit. It’s not going to be noticeable to anyone who can’t see in color, so it’s not important. “It’s not burning,” he says. “Your mind is just starting to panic. Just…stay still, whatever you do.”</p><p class="p1">“Oh, he doesn’t need to stay still,” an unknown voice comes from the doorway behind them.</p><p class="p1">Geralt brandishes his steel sword and swings around.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier curses, withdraws a knife from his belt, fumbles around with it a bit, and finally points it at the person in the doorway.</p><p class="p1">The mage leans against the doorway, nudging a foot at the tripped wire. They look completely uninterested in the fact that a witcher and his plus one invaded their personal space.</p><p class="p1">“What did you curse me with?” Jaskier gasps. “Am I going to die?”</p><p class="p1">“Die?” The mage crinkles their forehead, and stares Jaskier straight in the eyes, and then Geralt.</p><p class="p1">With a jolt, Geralt realizes he’s staring back at eyes that are a light, faded crimson. Almost unconsciously, he tries to cast the small amount of magic he has and calm the mage down.</p><p class="p1">“No, kid, you’re not going to die.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt steps forward until the blade of his steel sword touches the mage’s bare throat. “What did you do to him?” he demands.</p><p class="p1">“Touchy, touchy,” the mage sing-speaks, batting the blade away with a finger. “I didn’t do anything. My security system, on the other hand, played a little bit of a mean-spirited trick on you.”</p><p class="p1">“What. Did you do to him,” Geralt repeats.</p><p class="p1">“Relax, relax.” The mage walks over and sprawls on the singular chair, propping a foot up on the desk. They gesture at the cracked letter. “Oh, did you get a chance to read the pornography I’ve been working on writing? We’re in the third draft of peer edits. I’d like to think it’s quite good. Now, maybe don’t worry about the trick too much, just wash off the potion as soon as possible. I can see that, with you two, this shouldn’t be too difficult to solve.”</p><p class="p1">“To <em>solve</em>?” Jaskier prods. “What are we solving?”</p><p class="p1">The mage shrugs. “It’s not much, just a low-powered truth serum. Don’t worry, it doesn’t make you talk unless you want to, so you’re not pressured to say any truths you don’t want to say. But when you do speak, well…” They grin.</p><p class="p1">“And how do we fix it?” Geralt prods.</p><p class="p1">“Oh, that’s the easy part,” the mage laughs. “A kiss from your true love.”</p><p class="p1">The room is silent for several seconds.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier holds up a hand. “Just want to make sure I heard this right. You, a very powerful mage associated with an Elder Race band of terrorists assaulting the Continent, decided to make your <em>flat’s security system</em> a fucking weird-ass fairy tale spell, complete with a kiss from your soulmate as the cure?”</p><p class="p1">“I’m an optimist, sue me,” the mage shrugs.</p><p class="p1">Geralt withdraws the silver sword this time, and the mage actually stills at this. “Tell us how to break the spell.”</p><p class="p1">“Would if I could, especially now that I see I’ve trapped a hot, although impartial, duo not associated with these godforsaken anti-magic sentiments. That was a good Axii you tried to cast just now.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt tightens his grip on the sword. “Guess it didn’t work then,” he growls.</p><p class="p1">“Sorry,” the mage says. “I didn’t design it to break, aside from after true love’s kiss. It’s <em>my security system</em>. I don’t design security systems to be broken!”</p><p class="p1">Geralt feels a hand around his forearm and Jaskier is dragging Geralt out of the room. “It’s okay,” Jaskier starts to babble, and Geralt is suddenly aware that everything out of his mouth is magically true. “Really, it’s fine, I completely understand. We broke into your house, and we have to suffer the consequences—<em>I </em>have to suffer the consequences. Have a nice day!”</p><p class="p1">Geralt stops at the doorway, looking back at the mage.</p><p class="p1">The mage stares back.</p><p class="p1">Geralt hesitates. “The pornography,” he says. “It’s very well-written.”</p><p class="p1">The mage breaks out into a large, genuine smile. “Go get your true love’s kiss.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">They end up in Jaskier’s flat above another crowded inn, a rented room that has more space for rats than it does for two people to sit awkwardly. Or, more accurately, for Geralt to perch on the corner of the bed awkwardly, and for Jaskier to pace around the room.</p><p class="p1">“We have to find your soulmate,” Geralt says.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier runs his hands through his hair. “That’s the thing,” he says, and then shuts up.</p><p class="p1">“What?” Geralt asks. They’ve been through this a couple times. “What’s the thing?”</p><p class="p1">“I can’t…I don’t want to tell you,” Jaskier says with finality.</p><p class="p1">“Thank God the mage’s spell didn’t include you wanting to tell me pertinent information,” Geralt mutters. “It would make this too easy, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?”</p><p class="p1">“I’m sorry,” Jaskier says. “This is absolutely my fault, and I shouldn’t have accompanied you in the first place. But you don’t have to worry about me! I can deal with this myself.”</p><p class="p1">“Jaskier, you’ve been cursed to tell the truth until you fucking smooch your soulmate!” Geralt shouts. “And you <em>don’t have a soulmate!</em> So no, you can’t deal with this yourself.”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier winces. “It’s actually a little worse than that,” he admits. “I know for a fact that I will never be anyone’s soulmate.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt xenovoxes Keira before he has a full-blown brain aneurysm, and before he knows it, the small room at the inn that’s barely large enough for two people now also contains the main surviving members of the Lodge of Sorceresses.</p><p class="p1">Philippa Eilhart is sitting on the windowsill. Philippa <em>fucking </em>Eilhart, possibly the most powerful person currently on the Continent, is sitting on this inn’s dusty windowsill.</p><p class="p1">“Please,” Jaskier puts his hands up in surrender, “you don’t have to take time out of your schedules to worry about little old me.”</p><p class="p1">“You literally know all of us by sight,” Triss says. She’s perched on the singular stool. “You know where we meet. You have centuries of knowledge of <em>all of the goddamn resistance, just because the witcher decided to make you a kept boy, and</em>—”</p><p class="p1">Yen holds up a hand, regarding Jaskier coolly. Geralt doesn’t usually get knots in his stomach looking at Yen, not since they split, but watching her focus on Jaskier with all the rage of the magic within her, he’s a little intimidated.</p><p class="p1">“Name-calling won’t help when Radovid comes knocking, asking you exactly where our locations are and what the most efficient way of skewering us is,” she says sweetly.</p><p class="p1">“Oh, the truth serum doesn’t make me say things I don’t want to say,” Jaskier interrupts.</p><p class="p1">“No,” Yennefer says. “But torture does.”</p><p class="p1">Her eyes are a fucking fierce shade of purple, and Geralt wishes Jaskier did have a soulmate so he could be as impressed as Geralt is right now by the stunning color. Besides, Jaskier having a soulmate would clear up the other issue in the room.</p><p class="p1">There’s something at the corner of Geralt’s consciousness that is glad Jaskier doesn’t have a soulmate, and Geralt doesn’t quite know what his consciousness is trying to let him know.</p><p class="p1">“So do you want to die, or not?” Geralt asks.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier meets his eyes, and then slowly lowers them. “I don’t want to die,” he says.</p><p class="p1">“So let’s find you a soulmate.”</p><p class="p1">“We could just kill him,” Philippa pipes up from the corner of the room. “Then we’d be done with it. Easy.”</p><p class="p1">“Okay,” Yennefer starts, “just because you’re used to killing everything that stands in your way doesn’t mean it works in this case.”</p><p class="p1">“Oh?” Philippa says, and even though she hasn’t had eyes for a while, Geralt feels like she’s as invested in this staring contest as Yennefer is.</p><p class="p1">“<em>Oh</em>,” Yennefer repeats, and turns back to Jaskier.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier’s eyebrows are up to his forehead and he stares at Geralt, mouth hanging open a little bit. Geralt widens his eyes a bit too in solidarity.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier turns back to Yennefer with a bit more life to his face, and Geralt does not want to seek out what that recognition is doing to his heart right now, because it may be skipping. Geralt does not know what a skipping heart feels like, but it might be happening right now.</p><p class="p1">“We need you to tell us everything so that we can find your soulmate as quickly as possible. What your preferences are, a list of past lovers so we can cross them off, any possible prophecies or card readings that alluded to your soulmate as a child…”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier sighs and closes his eyes. “There’s no need,” he says, and it’s with such finality that Yennefer stops her list.</p><p class="p1">“What do you mean?”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier glances over to meet Geralt’s eyes, and then studiously trains them on the floor in front of him. He speaks very slowly, as if forcing himself to say words that, with the truth serum, he doesn’t want to admit. “I do have a soulmate.”</p><p class="p1">The room erupts into chaos.</p><p class="p1">Cynthia has to hold back Triss as she says, “You’ve had a soulmate this <em>entire damn time</em>—“</p><p class="p1">Philippa has left this plane of existence. She’s just gone.</p><p class="p1">Geralt scoots closer to Jaskier and folds his arms. Jaskier’s posture has changed dramatically, and he seems to be defeated as he stares at the ground.</p><p class="p1">“Hey,” Geralt nudges, “don’t worry about all this. Now that we know you have a soulmate, we can find them, and get you that kiss.”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier just shakes his head. “It’s not going to work like that,” he says.</p><p class="p1">“Why not?”</p><p class="p1">“Please, Geralt, don’t make me go through all this. I’ve already told you what I want to tell you. This can’t break the spell.”</p><p class="p1">“But you have a soulmate.”</p><p class="p1">“Yeah,” Jaskier says, and suddenly his voice is the only one in the room. “But I am not their soulmate in return.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt hasn’t thought about soulmates in much depth before, and he’s definitely never thought of the possibility that a person could bond with someone who couldn’t bond with them back.</p><p class="p1">That must be a worse feeling than never being able to have a soulmate in the first place.</p><p class="p1">Yennefer figures something out, because she goes through an entire face journey before placing one hand on Jaskier’s shoulder and saying, “We’ll be back if you need us, but…I think that clears things up nicely.”</p><p class="p1">Before Geralt can object, the entire Lodge has left through an assortment of portals, and the cramped room is less cramped now, and somehow more awkward than when they began.</p><p class="p1">“Do you know what she meant?” Geralt asks.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier grits his teeth.</p><p class="p1">Refusing to answer under a truth serum is the same as answering, if the answer is yes. “Do you know who your soulmate is?” Geralt continues.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier doesn’t bother trying to answer that, just stares off into the corner.</p><p class="p1">“Jaskier, I want to help you.”</p><p class="p1">“I…I understand,” Jaskier says, voice barely louder than the ambient noise of the city. “You always want to help me. I always…I’m always the one that needs help.”</p><p class="p1">“If only we could make you a witcher,” Geralt tries for humor. “Then you wouldn’t need to bother with soulmates in the first place.”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier doesn’t respond. Geralt’s not used to that. Usually whenever he makes a shitty joke, Jaskier will immediately overreact, but he guesses it’s no fun if Jaskier can’t pretend he’s offended.</p><p class="p1">Geralt tries not to miss the familiarity of Jaskier shooting back, of him stumbling over his own words as he spits out a retort, but something in the witcher still aches for it.</p><p class="p1">“So you can see in color,” Geralt tries again.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier perks up at this, and he nods silently.</p><p class="p1">Geralt points to Jaskier’s doublet, the stain fading. “What color is this?”</p><p class="p1">“What are you doing?”</p><p class="p1">“Making sure you’re not just mistaken,” Geralt says. “What color are you wearing?”</p><p class="p1">“Blue.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt hums. Someone could have told him that. But Jaskier does own a significant amount of outfits in similar cut to this one, that span the range of dyes, so it would be difficult to keep them straight if he couldn’t tell the difference.</p><p class="p1">“What color am I wearing?”</p><p class="p1">“Brown.”</p><p class="p1">That’s too easy. Leather is usually brown.</p><p class="p1">“Do you think I’m lying to you?” Jaskier presses. “Because I <em>literally can’t right now</em>.”</p><p class="p1">“Good point.”</p><p class="p1">So.</p><p class="p1">“Jaskier, we’re going to have to bring you to your soulmate at some point,” Geralt says. “You need to tell me who it is.”</p><p class="p1">And Geralt isn’t going to think about the fact that Jaskier has a soulmate, which means he’s bound to be in love with someone, and that someone is…someone else. He’s not going to think about that, because that would leave Geralt feeling an emotion.</p><p class="p1">He’s a witcher. They don’t have soulmates because they don’t have emotions.</p><p class="p1">Geralt gears himself up to hear whatever comes out of Jaskier’s mouth.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier rubs his eyes. “I don’t think you’d like the answer,” he says.</p><p class="p1">A thought suddenly strikes Geralt so fast that he doesn’t have time to overthink it before he’s saying, “Fuck, it isn’t Yennefer, is it?”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier bursts out laughing.</p><p class="p1">Geralt is still working through it. “That would make sense if you’re not her soulmate in return. Sorceresses shuck off mortal destiny with ease.”</p><p class="p1">“Oh, my god,” Jaskier is saying. “<em>No</em>. It’s definitely not Yennefer.”</p><p class="p1">“What do you mean by ‘definitely’?” Geralt could get a little miffed on Yen’s behalf. He’s not going to, but he could.</p><p class="p1">“I mean, it’s someone else.”</p><p class="p1">“Yes, well, if it’s not Yennefer then it is indeed another person who isn’t Yennefer. I understand,” Geralt says. “You just need to tell me who it is.”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier sucks in a deep breath.</p><p class="p1">Geralt’s hanging onto the edge of his seat.</p><p class="p1">Instead of giving Geralt a name, Jaskier starts hesitantly. “When I was eighteen,” he says, “I didn’t have a purpose to my life. I took my lute and wandered, and for the most part, it worked as it was supposed to. I didn’t feel like I needed a purpose; I just existed. For a while.”</p><p class="p1">If Jaskier met his soulmate when he was eighteen, then he’s been able to see in color for a significant amount of time.</p><p class="p1">“And then,” Jaskier carries on, “I was playing this absolutely filthy tavern, almost out of coin, about ready to indenture myself to the next textile trader I could find, but I wanted to play a couple more songs. Remind myself of the reason I had stepped out on my own in the first place. And so there I was.”</p><p class="p1">“Upper Posada,” Geralt finishes for him. His mouth is so, so dry, and Jaskier is right in front of him, still looking anywhere but Geralt’s face.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier’s hands shake as he continues, so Geralt reaches down and covers them with his own, squeezing gently.</p><p class="p1">“There’s this man in the corner, and when everyone else is too drunk to do anything but scream at me, he doesn’t react. Doesn’t pay attention to me. So by the time I finally catch his eye, finally look at him, I’m halfway through a sentence. And then I feel it. The world…shifts. Not all at once. In fact, the only thing I notice right then and there is that his eyes are a brilliant, shining yellow—though I didn’t know what yellow was, at that moment. I just knew that I was absolutely captivated.”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier takes a ragged breath. “The rest of the world isn’t in color for a while. For a couple hours, I thought that was all the color I was missing from the world—one shade of this unknown pigment in this witcher’s eyes. I didn’t see the next color until we were tied up, Toruviel smashing my lute, and you rescued us, but the blood… The blood all over your face was so bright. So crisp. So red. And I was covered with it as well. I thought…I thought we were dying, but you brought us out of there.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt’s mouth is dry. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks. Something inside of him has given up, is telling him: <em>He didn’t want to be bound to you. That’s why he never told you.</em></p><p class="p1">“You’re a witcher,” Jaskier says simply. “You’ve told me yourself; you’ve seen in color since you were a child. You don’t get soulmates. What would be the use?”</p><p class="p1">“<em>What would be the use?</em>” Geralt repeats. “I don’t know. Maybe kissing you and seeing if that breaks the spell. Maybe that would be a good use.”</p><p class="p1">“…Sorry, <em>what</em>?”</p><p class="p1">“Did I fucking stutter?” Geralt asks. “Maybe we could have stopped beating around the bush and gotten down to business.”</p><p class="p1">“But, but,” Jaskier babbles, “you don’t have a soulmate.”</p><p class="p1">“Technically,” Geralt says, “I don’t <em>know </em>if I have a soulmate. I am just not able to figure out if I have a soulmate like everyone else.”</p><p class="p1">“You’re a witcher.”</p><p class="p1">“Jaskier, we’ve known each other for years; if you claim that witchers don’t have emotions, that witchers don’t <em>feel love, </em>I’ll walk out of here right now and leave you under this truth serum forever.”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier shuts his mouth, and then opens it again to say, “What were you going to do instead?”</p><p class="p1">“Well,” Geralt says, a little grumpy, “I <em>was </em>going to kiss you.”</p><p class="p1">“To see if the spell wears off?”</p><p class="p1">“That,” Geralt admits, “and.”</p><p class="p1">“And what?”</p><p class="p1">“And…maybe because I wanted to.”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier smiles up at him, and something within Geralt twists, in a good way. In a very good way.</p><p class="p1">“And,” Geralt adds, “because I’m almost broke, and you can’t sing to make us any more coin. Your only relevant song is entirely based on lies.”</p><p class="p1">“Hey! I could sing <em>Her Sweet Kiss</em>.”</p><p class="p1">“And pretend that you’re infatuated with ‘her’? Jaskier, you literally just told me that I was your soulmate.”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier curses gently, and they’re so close together, in the absolute stillness of the room. Geralt stares into Jaskier’s soft eyes, <em>blue</em> and yearning.</p><p class="p1">They’re so close, and Geralt can feel Jaskier’s short, terse breaths. He can almost hear the human’s elevated heart rate.</p><p class="p1">“I just remembered,” Jaskier says. “The mage mentioned ‘true love’s kiss.’ I thought they meant strictly a soulmates’ kiss, but that’s…a little bit of a different way to phrase it. ‘True love.’ This way, your emotions matter more,” Jaskier presses a hand to Geralt’s chest, where is own heart is beating at an accelerated rate, “than how destiny views it. It’s validating your emotions, witcher. It’s telling you that, even if destiny didn’t hand you a multicolored signpost, this—this right here—is fate, too.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt closes his hand over Jaskier’s, both of them sitting there and feeling his heartbeat like they’re wet around the ears. But they’ve known each other for almost a decade; they’re not <em>shy</em>.</p><p class="p1">They are, though, hopelessly in love with one another. And it only took a mage’s security system to let each other know.</p><p class="p1">“Jaskier, I would like to kiss you now,” Geralt says.</p><p class="p1">“Geralt, <em>my soulmate</em>, I would also like to kiss you.”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier is the one to wrap his hands around Geralt’s neck and lean in for the kiss, meeting their mouths and holding on to wait for the spell to break.</p><p class="p1">Geralt melts into it, and Jaskier takes that as a cue to deepen it, shifting his body until Jaskier is leaning against him, breath and pulses quickening.</p><p class="p1">Geralt pulls back, just for a second, just to catch his breath. His pupils are dilating, and Jaskier stares into them, no doubt watching the yellow shift and turn.</p><p class="p1">“Tell me a lie,” Geralt breathes, and his voice is so hoarse.</p><p class="p1">Jaskier wrinkles his nose. “Um, I hate you and I want you to stop kissing me?”</p><p class="p1">Geralt sniffs. “That’s a very mean thing for you to say.”</p><p class="p1">Jaskier grasps Geralt’s flowing hair with one hand. “Good thing it was a lie,” he says, and pulls them back together.</p><p class="p1">Geralt remembers how the mage had left them, saying, <em>“Go get your true love’s kiss.”</em></p><p class="p1">Geralt remembers that he didn’t know what the mage had meant then.</p><p class="p1">Now, looking into Jaskier’s baby blue eyes, he definitely does.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>remind me that i haven't finished my last geraskier fic on my <a href="https://serenfire.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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